The culture around collectible design seems to grow year on year. In 2024, contemporary-design salon Matter and Shape launched in Paris, and 21st-century design fair Collectible expanded from Brussels to New York. This year, new galleries such as Cobogó opened, The Future Perfect established a Miami outpost, Basic.Space launched a design fair in LA, and Design Miami hosted its first activation in Asia – ‘Design Miami.In Situ: Seoul’ – showing the globally spreading popularity of collectible design.
While the desire for vintage pieces remains strong, Liv Vaisberg, co-founder of Collectible with Clélie Debehault, believes that the appetite for contemporary-collectible design has blossomed over the past decade.
‘It wasn’t so much of a thing 10 years ago – now, it’s much more respected.’ Before launching Collectible in 2018 Vaisberg noticed that young designers had ‘limited visibility’ at fairs like PAD or Design Miami: ‘They were side dishes, not the main course.’ Collectible set out to change that. ‘Contemporarycollectible design is a discipline of its own now – and there are a lot of new players,’ she says.
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Design Miami director Jen Roberts has noticed the rise of younger collectors, for whom meaning, nostalgia and storytelling are important driving factors. ‘They want pieces to resonate with them,’ she says, ‘and a lot of people buy things that remind them of their childhood.’ Playful post-modernist work from Ettore Sottsass or Gaetano Pesce is popular among these new collectors, she adds, and she’s hearing ‘a lot about the 1980s and 90s’ from the galleries and dealers involved in Design Miami.
Vaisberg agrees that we are seeing ‘a revival of the 1990s in general’, identifying this in the popularity of metal furniture. Inspired, perhaps, by the late-20th-century experimental work of Tom Dixon, André Dubreuil and Marc Newson – all of which are performing well at auction – up-and-coming designers are turning to metal to create striking furniture, noticeably dominating the contemporary-collectible market.
Part of this includes the rise of what Vaisberg calls ‘sexy’ furniture – where steel, aluminium, chainmail and mesh often mix with leather and rubber in a ‘film noir’ vibe. One designer she loves is Panorammma, a Mexico Citybased studio that creates narrative-rich, seemingly mysterious works: chainmail chairs and lamps where medieval meets modern; candleholders evocative of ritual and religion; playful chairs with ball-shaped feet crafted using steel and cactus leather.
Roberts says there are ‘more people leaning towards buying clean-lined metal design’, highlighting the inspiring work of Los Angeles-based B G Robinson, Dutch designer Linde Freya Tangelder and Korean studio Niceworkshop in particular.
But while metal is generating new excitement, the love for well-crafted pieces in natural materials endures – and has only become stronger over time. ‘There’s a reconnection with the organic and the natural world,’ says Sarah Myerscough, founder of the eponymous gallery in London that focuses on collectible craft and recently opened a larger flagship in Mayfair. She sees this as a response to the increasing digitisation and mass production defining society, which leaves people craving something more rooted in nature.
Such an embrace of wood and craftsmanship sustains the ever-popular market for Brazilian modernism, particularly Joaquim Tenreiro, as well as other modernist icons such as George Nakashima – both of whom consistently perform well at auction. In the same vein as those masters, contemporary makers – including Ernst Gamperl and Christopher Kurtz, both represented by Myerscough – are celebrating the natural state of materials, as well as the traces of their own hands and tools.
Collectors are responding enthusiastically: ‘People are looking for that richness, authenticity and honesty in a work, and are prepared to pay for that, because they understand time is spent making these pieces,’ Myerscough says.
‘There is definitely more of an interest in curvier, handmade design, with the craftsmanship really showing,’ adds Valerio Capo, co-founder of Gallery Fumi, who notes that sculptural chairs and lighting are particularly in demand. Fumi’s designers, including Carlès & Demarquet (showcased at PAD London this autumn), JamesPlumb and the ever-collectible Max Lamb, show this approach at its finest.
And the boom in handmade objects extends to ceramics, which are experiencing ‘a lot of attraction’, notes Lina Kanafani, founder of London’s Mint Gallery. Ceramics have the added benefit of being smaller and easier to collect, and appeal to collectors as they have a lower price point relative to furniture or art.
At the other end of the spectrum from ceramics’ affordability, there is, of course, a ‘super-high end’ of the market, says Roberts, with consistent demand for furniture and lighting from 20th-century designers including Claude Lalanne, Diego Giacometti and Jean Royère. Recent auction results from Christie’s reveal original works from all designers are reaching seven-figure sums. ‘The sales have been up this year in the collectible-design space in the auctions,’ says Roberts. ‘So that’s a really good sign.’
In terms of finding new contemporary-design talent, Kanafani, Vaisberg and Myerscough all mention graduate shows – particularly those at Design Academy Eindhoven and the Royal College of Art in London. Graduates are usually ‘ahead of the mainstream’, says Kanafani, and trends are driven by ‘how they are thinking and how they’re interpreting materials’.
There is no golden formula to identifying what will be a future collectible, but most gallerists and fair directors go with their intuition. ‘We always keep an eye on things that excite us,’ says Capo, while Vaisberg is ‘always on the lookout for things that are new – I’m not interested in repeating what has already been seen’. Myerscough believes the same is true of collectors: ‘I think there’s an inertia about a digitally or mass-produced interior – people want something they haven’t seen before.’ What’s more, they want something that lasts.
Many of the furniture-makers Myerscough represents create ‘legacy pieces’ that are, she believes, ‘the antiques of the future’. Collectors are drawn to such pieces, reflecting a desire to move away from a ‘throwaway’ society. ‘They want works to give to their children, that will last and become more beautiful, with the patina becoming enriched,’ says Myerscough. ‘I think the way we buy antiques we cherish is the same now with contemporary design.’
